


Artemisia

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 'what are we', 1930s AU, 2020 Edelthea Secret Valentines Exchange, Edelgard in a suit, F/F, Gay sweating, In a manner of speaking, Modern AU, a gatsby party without the murder, crests aren't relevant, general hedonism but probably not enough, post-prohibition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22920964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: Edelgard tips the glass of bourbon toward her, gazing into the amber depths, the opaque ice. Up on the stage the live band is starting. The chanteuse has a voice like crystal, drawing people in to listen right from out on the cold street. Business has never been better, and she’s up to her elbows in work from day to day.  Edelgard is not lacking for potential partners. But she has her eye on just one woman - Dorothea Arnault.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 13
Kudos: 56
Collections: 2020 Edelthea Secret Valentines Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marble_Ocean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marble_Ocean/gifts).



> For sapphic_plant on twitter. If you are sapphic_plant and own an AO3 account, please leave a comment to identify yourself, so I can link this to you as a proper gift!

Edelgard tips the glass of bourbon toward her, gazing into the amber depths, the opaque ice. Up on the stage the live band is starting. The chanteuse has a voice like crystal, drawing people in to listen right from out on the cold street. Business has never been better, and she’s up to her elbows in work from day to day. The uniform of a bartender - something to cover up her vulnerabilities, suit pants and shined shoes, white gloves to keep her fingerprints off the glass. Being covered makes her feel strong. 

Edelgard has a notepad by her hand, full of drafted messages, notes and little doodles; things she wants to remember when she’s speaking on the phone. Orders for the bar. Shaky shorthand requests made on back pages, casual drafts. Would you like to come to lunch. _Would_ you like to come to lunch. Lunch? Dinner. Dinner is too commital. Are you free this Saturday, strikethrough. Thursday, strikethrough. After work, strikethrough. 

Her father gave her the contact details of all the performers, to follow up on people who are late or too sick to play. She can tap any one of these and ask them to fill in on short notice, leaning on the cover of the rotary dial installed into the wall as she makes calls down the list. 

Unfortunately, the schedule changes she’s made have gone swimmingly. Every musician shows up, does their job, takes the fee and the bonus, and leaves. So she has no reason at all to contact Ms Arnault, either for work matters or to ask her to a quiet dinner. Edelgard allows herself a moment of weakness. It’s not like she isn’t glad that she’s got full reigns for how the bar is run. Her father was right to trust her. 

“Miss Hresvelg?” Hubert says, “The accounts are ready for review.”   
Edelgard pinches the bridge of her nose, letting the sound of the singer on stage soothe her ragged nerves.   
“Thank you,” she murmurs.  
“Would you prefer I took care of them this month?”   
“Would you?” Edelgard asks. 

She straightens her back as Hubert dips his head, silent as he moves away and sets up the typewriter on a table in a quiet corner, facing away from the stage. His long, angular fingers rattle the keys as he types at an almost frightening speed, catching it before it chimes and pushing it back. Edelgard jams her hands into her pockets, reading the outline of her keys, her pen-knife, the spare button for her gloves. She turns the shape over in her fingertips, trying to soothe herself. 

Over by the stage, the song comes to an end. Ms. Arnault is helped off the stage with a spring in her step. She moves past the stage manager without acknowledging him, heading directly for the bar. 

Dorothea Arnault is tall. Edelgard pulls her hands out of her pockets and swallows with a dry mouth, because if she tries to take a sip of her bourbon she’ll cough and spill it. Dorothea’s arms fold underneath her bosom, and she gives Edelgard a smile.   
“Thank you for the opportunity, Miss Hresvelg.”  
“Please,” she finds herself saying, “Call me Edelgard.”  
“Edelgard,” Dorothea says, savouring the word, “Do you mind if I call you Edie?”  
“Not at all,” Edelgard finds herself saying, feeling foolish even then.   
“I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow,” Dorothea says, “I hope you’ll be here when I pick up my check.”  
“Of course, I’m here every day,” Edelgard says.   
“Then it’s a date,” Dorothea says. 

Edelgard feels herself flush, hates the heat and the shame in her cheeks. Dorothea giggles, pulling on her jacket, wrapping the long fur around her neck.   
“Tomorrow, then,”   
“Yes, tomorrow.” 

Dorothea turns, giving the club a little wave. Late evening, but snowy streets outside are nearly blinding white as she leaves through the open door. A cold winter, brushing in flakes of snow on the wind as she steps outside.   
Edelgard pushes the glass away from herself, and puts her face down on the bar.


	2. Chapter 2

Fodlan, 1928.   
Prohibition is over, and moonshine no longer threatens to turn the populace blind with hidden chemicals from rusty vats. Drinks are more than raw ethyl alcohol covered by soda and sour pimento olives. Edelgard edges the bourbon over on the bar, exhausted down to the bones. The ice is beginning to melt. 

Hubert appears at her elbow, dapper in his suit. He’s slipping his gloves back on, a painfully awkward recline on the bar as he watches the stage manager heft a drum kit off the stage alone. 

“That was the last song of the night, Miss Hresvelg.” he says.  
“It was.”  
“You could have asked her for a drink.”  
“I could have.”  
“What prevented you?” he asks.  
Edelgard tips up her chin and fixes a gaze at him.  
“The same reason you’re watching the stage manager instead of helping him, Mr. Vestra.”   
“I didn’t think the accounts weighed that heavily upon you, Miss Hresvelg.”   
Edelgard gives him a tired sigh, sliding the drink along the bar. Hubert takes it, sipping on it as he gazes off into the distance. 

“This drink is warm, Miss Hresvelg,” he murmurs.   
“You’ll find the deep freeze in the back room if you turn left,” Edelgard says.   
“Do you want to talk?” Hubert asks.   
“It’s getting late,” Edelgard says, neatly sidestepping the question, “Would you get my jacket?” 

Edelgard likes to walk home in the snow, time to think as the flakes crunch underneath her feet. She wraps herself up warm, waves Hubert away and walks by herself. She knows he’ll be watching her back from twelve paces down the street. A bodyguard; an old friend. 

She runs through her mental rolodex. Ms. Martritz tomorrow, four til six for the ones who want Seiros guilt with their cheap beers, and then Ms. Casagranda for the rest of the evening. Edelgard’s eyebrows pinch together. She’s been one of the ones less easy to handle, but she entertains well during cocktail hour. 

She’s missed her chance for this week. Ms. Arnault is otherwise occupied during the coming fortnight. A mystery, but it’s said a woman isn’t captivating without one. Tomorrow is their last chance to talk. It’s likely she’s going trans-continental, taking the train up to Faerghus for the concerts at the winter palace. If so, it’ll be longer than a fortnight. 

Beautiful women like Dorothea Arnault don’t have any lack of admirers. Edelgard reaches into the breast pocket of her coat for her cigarette case, putting one between her lips. She pats her pockets down for her lighter, scrunching her nose as she realizes that she left it behind the bar again. 

In her pause, Hubert catches up to her. With him next to her he’s a solid block against the wind tunneling through the winter streets. Glancing upward at his chin, she realizes his pale eyes are fixed on her troubled expression.   
“I’ll bring the car around, Miss Hresvelg,” he says quietly, “Your father won’t want you to catch a cold.”


	3. Chapter 3

Edelgard puts her head back against the leather seat, relaxed enough in Hubert’s company to truly sprawl.   
“I’m a fool,” she says gravely.   
“What is your crime against logic today, Miss Hresvelg?” Hubert says, glancing into the rear-view mirror.   
“I wanted to ask her to dinner,” Edelgard says.  
“Miss Arnault?” Hubert says.  
“Miss Arnault.” Edelgard confirms. She takes the cigarette out of her mouth, considering it. A smear of red lipstick lines the filter end. 

“Did you establish if she has an interest in women?”  
“Hubert!” Edelgard exclaims, sitting up in the back seat.   
“My apologies, Edelgard,” he says smoothly. 

“You’re right. I have no chance.”   
Edelgard puts the cigarette back into her mouth, glaring into Hubert’s reflection in the rear-view mirror. His dark-rimmed eyes gaze back, watery green, before he’s back looking at the road.   
“Without asking her, it cannot be confirmed or denied.” 

Edelgard once again pats down her clothes, looking for a lighter.   
“Do you have any matches, Mr. Vestra?”   
“Not while I’m driving, Miss Hresvelg,” Hubert says, as mildly as he can manage, “Also your father instructed me to entreat you to quit.”   
“Blow my father,” Edelgard says, tucking her cigarette back into her cigarette case, “And blow the cigarettes too.” 

Hubert’s mouth twitches, but he shifts gear and turns the Bentley down to a side road, following the long path up to the estate on the hill. 

Edelgard has a lot of time to think on the way. The atmosphere inside the car is warm but quiet, and she stares at the pattern of light on the ceiling of the car as it moves. Reflections from the snow, cool light scattering brightly. She turns up the collar of her coat, turning her cheek into the warmth, and thinks about how to become closer to Dorothea Arnault. 

Despite her small stature, Edelgard has presence. She startles a maid in the front hall, putting down her cigarette case next to the vase on the table, tossing the weight of her coat on to the rack. No wonder she’s been hankering for a cigarette all day - she left her lighter on the table there, emblazoned with her crest. She nudges it further away from herself with her fingertips, avoiding an apology while she thinks of what to do. 

The grand hall - the whole house - hasn’t really had a party since her mother’s ill health after the war. Edelgard takes a rose from the vase, using her pocket knife to trim it, and puts it in her lapel.   
Meeting her on the job? Thoughtless. Tantamount to waving down a taxi driver and insisting that he accompany you to the pictures. No. Edelgard will invite her to a gathering, and make her move there.


	4. Chapter 4

Edelgard puts down her pen, flexing her aching wrist. Half a sandwich on a plate, curling up at the edges and forgotten in the pursuit of calligraphy. To invite less than a full house of guests would be unfortunate, naturally. And so it comes to a grand re-opening of house Hresvelg. 

She carefully blots the ink, and puts the card aside on the stack. Her cigarette is finally burning down to ash, forgotten, a slim trail of smoke curling upwards like a line. She stares at the cigarette for a moment rather than picking it up, and grinds away the cigarette into the ashtray. 

Eight days of planning, cleaning, ordering, music lists, cocktail blends. Work in the afternoon and evening, more planning at night. Edelgard dreams of folded napkins turning into pigeons, disrupting the buffet tables and flying away. Two weeks is just enough time to turn the event from something quiet to something on the lips of everybody in Fodlan. Six more days in the making as the house is slowly decorated with ribbons and balloons, and the cobwebs of the great war are blown out. 

Edelgard finds Dorothea leaning on the bar alone, in from the cold on a day she’s not scheduled to sing. Edelgard’s shirt sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, jacket off from working in the back room hauling barrels that she’d wager stack higher than she is tall. She straightens her tie before edging over to catch her attention.

“May I get you anything?” Edelgard says.  
“Edie!” Dorothea says, “Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask...”  
Edelgard nods, pulling a card out of her breast pocket and laying it down on the counter and sliding it across with two fingers. She needs to do it before she’s sent away for a drink order, or the moment will be lost.  
_You are invited _curls in thick swirls across the top of the card.  
Dorothea goes silent for a moment, and Edelgard fills the quiet.  
“I’m having a get-together at my family’s estate. I was hoping you’d come.”  
Dorothea takes the card, rotates it in surprise.  
“You’re not obligated to, of course,” Edelgard says, “It isn’t a formal event, just that I want to breathe some life into the place again-”  
“I’d be glad to!” Dorothea says, her cheeks pink as she grins, “Gosh, Edie, what a treat! I’ve got to find something to wear in time for it. Thank you!” Edelgard’s calm face sticks in place as Dorothea leans in to dash a quick peck on her cheek, draining the dregs of her drink and hopping off the bar stool.  
“You’re welcome-”  
“Thank you, I’ll see you there!”  
Edelgard mechanically reaches for Dorothea’s glass and dries it, fitting it into the box under the bar to be cleaned. Dorothea retrieves her coat from the steward at the alcove and vanishes into the night, her question unspoken. “You have a mark on your cheek,” Hubert notes.  
“I brought the barrels up from the basement,” Edelgard replies, grasping at air as her mind fills in with an instinctual urge to take and clean another glass.  
“Thank you, I’ll take care of it,” Hubert says, carefully nudging another glass down the bar so it meets Edelgard’s hand. __


	5. Chapter 5

A few days before the party is due, Edelgard’s parents take their leave of the estate on the hill for the house by the lake. Nothing will change with them gone; Edelgard has everything in hand, and has had it that way for a long time. The entrance hall is dim and cold, too wide with the sweep of the staircase up to the first floor and the left and right wings of the house. Her mother pats her shoulder, turning away as the butler opens the door. It cracks open to bring in light so bright that for a moment it feels blinding. Edelgard flinches, unused to being touched. 

She stands in the hall, hands clenched by her sides as the door closes and the sound of the convertible comes around the front, a quiet purr compared to the brisk thrum of her hard top. Chatter to the butler as the bags and boxes are loaded. They’re more at ease with the serving staff than they are with their own child.

Party favours still have to be sorted, and rooms checked and locked. Curtains have been thrown open, illuminating the motes of dust in the air, beams of light so warm and yellow that every room looks different, rich instead of cold. Edelgard takes off her gloves, rolls up her sleeves, gets stuck into fixing what she can fix, directing closely what she can’t. 

Even as Hubert uses his hideously long reach to shelve important books on high shelves while Edelgard carries the stack, she’s wondering how things are going. If Dorothea stepped inside and looked for her, to tell her that she couldn’t make it. The telephone rings shrilly and Edelgard drops the assorted collection of Valmese poetry, curling in her fingers as it continues to ring.   
“I’ll pick them up,” Hubert says, as Edelgard guiltily bends to retrieve _A Flower In The Dark_ and hold it, white-knuckled.  
“Right,” Edelgard says, and shakily answers the phone. 

“L’Arachel catering service,” says the perky voice on the end of the line, “I’d like to speak to the man in charge?”   
Edelgard’s mouth pulls into a grim, vengeful line as she holds it out for Hubert to take.   
“Hello?” catering service says, confused by the silence, “Ah, Hello?” 

Hubert runs his thumb underneath his chin as he takes the phone, switching his vocal tone as businesslike as he can make. Edelgard shakes her head. Alone in the room together, Hubert subtly mimes another assassination, trying to get her to smile. An old habit, but it still works. 

They take a break. Edelgard sits on the third-to-last step of the mansion’s stairs, watching the door and waiting for the clock to turn to six, an hour before the event is due to start. Even so, she regrets not being there at the bar. Edelgard goes to her rooms, to change into something more comfortable.

Her apartments are brighter than usual, and she puts her forehead against the sun-warmed wood of her wardrobe, turning her head to gaze nervously at the dress laid out on the bed. 

It’s nineteen-fucking-twenty-eight, for god’s sake. If not now, then when? Edelgard digs into her wardrobe for a pair of dress pants, checking the colour by draping it over her arm. It’s comfortable. Ordinary. Easy. She pulls out a shirt, matches a tie, finds the jacket. It feels like a suit of armour, something she can cloak herself with. She’s safest when she picks what people can see.


	6. Chapter 6

Close to midnight. The party still drums on downstairs, audible through the door. Edelgard navigates past women in glitter and feathery tiaras, men who are insisting they are only slightly drunk, and people who know better on all accounts. 

She finds the door of the study, locked up safely against the incursion of anybody into the Hresvelg estate accounts. With a whisper of the hinges it opens to a graceful creak and shuts out the roar behind the solid oak. The moon rises in the window above the desk, the clouds parting for a beautiful view over the gardens. Edelgard turns away, fumbling for the switch on the wall to call up the signal into the bulbs in the chandelier. 

Yellow and blinding, the darkness outside is fended off. Edelgard paces the floor, hands in pockets, rubbing a penny between her thumb and the crook of her first finger. The irrationality of her actions isn’t lost on her. 

Just five minutes. Edelgard hops off the desk top, crossing the room to open the door again and check the hall. A pair of young men are squaring up, removing their coats and folding them - such boarding school manners - to get ready to fight. Comical, but she’s off the clock, and half their height. 

With a mind to blacklist them from future events, Edelgard closes the door quietly and leans against the desk. She leans backward and opens the top drawer, pulling out an old packet of cigarettes.   
Finally settling down, she checks them for age and brings one up to her mouth. Her gloves are sliding down and making a gap between her hands and her sleeve. She tugs it up irritably, digs around for a matchbox that isn’t empty. The craving is sudden, painful, a moment of quiet in a wall of sound coming from through the door. The second match comes to life, a charcoal flare in electric light. 

Her heart still beats uncomfortably fast. In a minute she'll be fine, out and able to mix again, be a proper host. Instead she's stuck in her office - her father's office, but he doesn't- 

A tap on the door as she's picking nervously at her fingernails, cigarette propped up by her lower lip. Hubert, probably. She reaches for her gloves without looking.  
"Come in." 

It isn’t Hubert. Or Ferdinand. Not in the least.   
Dorothea off the clock dresses like a dream. She eschews the flat shapes and boxy angles of the current fashion for a shape that flows over her body like water. It holds her like a lover. If water was velvet and satin, Edelgard would still feel like she's drowning. 

Edelgard rolls her knuckles into the mahogany desk top, dragging her eyes away and reaching for something to read while she leans against her desk. Her father’s desk. _A_ desk. 

“Edie... I can call you Edie, can’t I?” Dorothea says, “I was worried about you.” 

"I have everything. I'm just here for some last minute things. I’m sorry for being a poor host. Is there an issue I can help you with?"   
Edelgard’s throat closes up when Dorothea comes close. She tips up her chin, the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. Dorothea’s mouth is red, red like a rose is red. Red that transfixes and holds her in place.   
“Edie,” Dorothea says, “You’re shaking like a leaf.” 

Edelgard turns her head, closing her eyes as though the perfume and presence of Dorothea isn’t close, isn’t something she can reach out and touch if she had the bottle to try.   
“Tensions of the week,” Edelgard says, pulling the cigarette from her mouth and grinding the ember away among ancient cigar stubs in the ashtray, “You’ve no need to worry.”

Dorothea’s hand is warm on her cheek, heat that Edelgard wants to lean into. She takes her hand and holds it, gently pushes it away. She can see the hurt it delivers, but pride won’t let her stop.   
“I’m glad to see you here, Miss Arnault.”

“Yes, I saw you circling the room downstairs earlier. You don’t do this often, do you?”   
“This is my first,” Edelgard says.   
“Am I standing too close?” Dorothea says.   
Edelgard feels sweat trail down her collar. The room is hot, and she’s all covered up from the neck down, from the collar of her shirt to her fingers, the tips of her oxfords.   
A lack of bravery is for lesser women. Edelgard steps forward, into Dorothea’s personal space.   
“I might ask the same of you,” Edelgard says.   
To her surprise, Dorothea laughs.   
“Oh, Edie. You can step closer than that if you’d like.”  
Edelgard examines her face for guile, and finds none. Dorothea fidgets with the notebook dangling from her wrist, waiting for Edelgard to catch the last clue. 

“Closer?” Edelgard says uncertainly.   
“Much closer,” Dorothea confirms.


	7. Chapter 7

Edelgard wills herself to it, but her knees feel locked in place, frozen. Dorothea reaches slowly, Edelgard’s panic slicing the moment down into seconds that hang for minutes. Dorothea wouldn’t hurt her, she knows. Edelgard backs into the table, the hard edge pushing her back toward Dorothea. 

“Miss Arnault?” Edelgard says.  
“Yes, Edie?”  
“Can you,” Edelgard says, and clenches her jaw, “Can you show me how.”  
“Oh,” Dorothea says, “Then could you sit on the desk?” 

Edelgard works well when she knows what to do. She pulls herself up on to the desk, feeling a fool with a heart like a fist, clenching with a pain she wants to call love. Dorothea closes the distance like she finds it easy, putting her hands down by Edelgard’s hips, leaning in. She’s warm and present, just - there, like the place that she stands couldn’t be filled by anybody else. 

“May I kiss you, Miss Edelgard?”  
Edelgard tries to reply, but it just comes out half-voiced and mumbling, lost somewhere. She clears her throat, speaks again.  
“Please,” she says, and, “Thank you.”

Dorothea tips her head, gives as she slips her thumb underneath the inner curve of Edelgard’s lapel, drawing her jacket from her shoulder and easing it down her arm. Edelgard bends her elbow awkwardly, fishing her gloved hand out of it to put it on Dorothea’s shoulder. She clings, sad as they break, drawing in breath.  
“May I kiss you again?” Dorothea asks.  
Edelgard rips her arm out of her other sleeve, dragging at the knot of her tie, popping the button as her chest heaves with the effort, inhaling violets, taking action to press up and kiss Dorothea, who hums in delighted surprise.  
Edelgard kisses her like the world could end, grasping and strange and over-eager. She forgets how to breathe and loves too much, and has to brace herself on the desk with one hand. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, finding it hard to regret.  
Dorothea’s lipstick is misaligned, she notices. But she’s bright eyed and magnetic, ever beautiful. Dorothea laughs, and gets even closer. 

Edelgard’s chest feels like an egg, cracking on impact as Dorothea misses her mouth on purpose and kisses her cheek, the few inches of neck above her collar. Edelgard tries to do the same - not sure where, but it’s all soft, all beautiful, the shape of Dorothea’s shoulder, the dip of her collarbone. Her voice as she laughs, the light scratch of her fingernails against Edelgard’s skin as Dorothea sets about popping another button on her shirt. Uncovering skin makes Edelgard feel vulnerable; usually, she tolerates it. Dorothea smoothes appreciatively over the hard muscle of Edelgard’s bicep, strong from the work she’s done. 

She leans back to let Dorothea in until the bend aches and she lets herself drop back against the desk, splayed stupid and captivated, gazing at the transferred lipstick she’s managed to mark Dorothea’s neck with. A strong showing for a beginner, and something she’d be delighted to put time into. She rubs her knuckles over her mouth, tipping one eyebrow as it comes away streaked with Dorothea’s lipstick. 

“You’re so cute, Edie,” Dorothea says, as though she’s not the prettiest thing that Edelgard has ever seen, “I’m so glad I came to find you.”  
“Yes,” Edelgard says, suddenly serious. She rests a hand over her own ribs to ask her breathing to simmer down to calm. Her tone turns grave.  
“I have to admit... All I wanted was you.”  
Dorothea has the decency to look surprised.“Me?”

Edelgard nods, eager to ignore the question, She glances away, realizing just how many important papers she’s resting on, but she’s too addled to want to move. 

“This whole party, just to see me?”  
“Yes, Dorothea,” Edelgard says, half-closing her eyes, “I’d been planning it for quite some time.”  
To admit it is embarrassing, but true.  
“Well,” Dorothea says, “That’s a shame. I wanted to invite you to a quiet lunch.”  
Edelgard lifts up on her elbows, her eyebrows pulling down in a confused frown.  
“A lunch? Are you sure?”  
“Yes,” Dorothea says, with a fond little sigh, bending over Edelgard so that the locks of her dark hair tickle Edelgard’s cheeks, “Is it such a shock for me to ask for what I want?”  
Edelgard cups Dorothea’s cheeks, drawing her down to kiss.  
“Would it be forward of me to tell you that I wanted you?”


End file.
